Chloe! I need it NOW!!!

In the first four hours of the sixth day of 24...

-The U.S. government frees Jack from a Chinese prison only to hand him over to terrorists to be killed.
-Jack bites a terrorist in the neck (blood dripping down chin included).
-The guy who plays Taj in the Van Wilder movies and Kumar in "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle" holds up a neighboring family at gunpoint while bleeding to death in their living room.
-Assasinated president David Palmer's brother Wayne is now president, and his sister Sandra is a senator/lawyer. (What are they, the Kennedys? Not that I'm complaining -- Wayne makes a much better president than that slimeball Logan last season. And I like that when he gets angry he speaks in quiet, low tones. Very nice. But nobody's as great as David Palmer. Not even his brother.)
-The guy who played quirky, stuttering John Cage on Ally McBeal has his Texan claws into Palmer and underhandedly tries to convince him to lock everyone with Middle-Eastern-sounding names up in some kind of Gitmo-like "terrorist detention facility." (He's been partially successful, too. And I fear he's only just begun.)
-Apparently Karen Hayes works in the White House now, and somewhere between seasons 5 and 6 she and Buchanan got hitched. (Better match than Michelle, I must say. Much closer to his AGE. Ahem.)
-Chloe's ex-husband Morris is back and working at CTU. His sauciness is much appreciated, since they've toned the now-brunette Chloe down a bit (boo) -- and hey, why is Milo back - and in a managerial position? Talk about nine lives. I liked him better as a pot-smoking peon. (OK, they never SAID he smoked pot. But I mean, come on.)
-Jack actually works WITH a former terrorist to catch another terrorist. Yes, you heard me right.
-Jack shoots and kills his friend and fellow CTU agent Curtis to protect the former terrorist guy. (Not as shocking as the deaths of Edgar, Tony and Michelle last season, but still. Nobody's safe on this show!)
-Oh, and Jack quits his job. (Not that I'm actually sure he was ever getting a paycheck.)
-And at the end of the two-night season premiere filled with bomb after bomb, the ultimate nightmare happened -- a nuclear explosion in Los Angeles County.

Talk about a jam-packed four hours. (And there's plenty I left out!)

I thought I'd be remiss if I didn't mention 24 in this little blog, since I know that some of my friends who occassionally read this like when I talk about TV -- and also like 24. I'm going to have a hard time waiting until next week to see what happens! (I've never watched it on TV before, only on DVD.) I'm very concerned that Jack was in the radiation zone of that bomb. I saw on the preview that he calls Buchanan up and un-quits his job. But I heard that Kiefer told Larry King in a recent interview that the show is well-equipped to go on without Jack Bauer. (Please! No!! Say it's not so!!!)

So what say you, 24 viewers? Will they kill off Jack at the end of this season? And I don't mean "kill" him, like at the end of most of the other seasons. I mean KILL him. Or will they be smart and either not have had him in the radiation zone or give him a miraculous recovery?

By the way, I agree with Entertainment Weekly that I am not looking forward to having to see the aftermath of the explosion. I've seen enough propaganda videos from WW2 and the Red Scare to know that I have no interest in seeing people's skin melting off of them and whatnot... here's hoping they keep it clean. Although they did have Jack very graphically bite someone to death just a few hours earlier.

And hey, you have to give it to 24 for going there. On basically every show that involves a nuclear attack, the attackers are stopped in the nick of time. 24 has never been afraid to have bombs go off (even in CTU), to have deadly gas permeate buildings, and to show bioterrorist threats fully executed, even at the peril of CTU's own staff. I guess that's part of the draw of the show. But I'm having trouble thinking of any show on TV at all that actually has had a nuclear attack happen.

By the way, if you're wondering whether or not I'm becoming more paranoid by the day, the answer's yes. But, as Charles Schultz says, "Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia." I'm just hoping against hope that there's someone like Jack Bauer out there, biting people's necks and deactivating bombs and kicking ticking people through subway doors right as they push the trigger.